Valentine's Day

by Torinmo Salau

There was love in the air; the aura of Valentine’s Day was sweeping through the school harder than the harmattan, which continually harassed us with cracked lips and flaky skin. Never been my kind of holiday. People always teased me behind my back about how my butt jiggled in my brown khaki shorts, which were rather too tight. Sometimes they were bold enough to stop whispering behind my back and say it to my face. Even the senior students called me Sponge Bob and classmates thought it was cool so they condensed it to “SB.” Sure, I’d try to lose weight, from time to time, by jogging round the dilapidated school bus adjacent to the incinerator where hardly anyone would see me. But food always welcomed me home.

Love was definitely not in the air, for me. But my friend Evans had a girl who made his heart flutter with butterflies dancing Samba in his stomach. He was still at a loss on what to buy her as a Valentine’s gift. The question of what to buy was even tougher for both of us because Biola, the dodo to Evans’ Jollof rice, was in SS1 while we were just in JSS3.

Two days to February 14th and we’d yet to find any gift that would melt Evans’ way into her heart. Evans had been shrinking, saving the little pennies his mother gave him for lunch rather than eat. During break, while he shared my lunch with me, I asked him, “Why are you doing this for a girl who is, without doubt, out of your league and doesn’t even know you exist?”

Evans shook his head and smiled, “You cannot understand, Ekene; it’s called love.”

“What is love?”

“Love is when you meet somebody, you think about Every second of the day and night Somebody so beautiful, it takes your breath away And words are just not enough to say.”

I was mesmerised. “Wow, that’s a lovely poem.” I never imagined Evans could write like that, because his grades in English language were pretty poor, despite being a mathematics genius. “Thanks, I wrote it for Biola,” said Evans with a blush. Evans’ poem helped me identify my feelings. That poem he wrote, I could never write anything like that about a girl. Nothing about them got me hard, even when hiding in my father’s toilet flipping through his GQ magazines filled with photoshopped naked women. But when I turned to a page with a man, dick curved like a fishhook inside his white briefs, my dick would stand like a flagpole.

It may not be love, but the man who took my breath away, who I thought about at night, was Idris Alba. He was my main crush, the sexist man alive with his chunky mounds of muscles. He was black testosterone personified, oozing and arousing through his dark narrowed eyes, razor-cut beard and warm smile. I couldn’t help salivating whenever I saw him draped in tuxedo suits, hungry to French kiss and fuck him, even if just as a one-night stand. But he’s not the only one who made my loins burn with an intense desire to offer myself to him, kneeling and sucking his balls, because whenever Cristiano Ronaldo scored, it triggered ripples of orgasms in me.

Valentine’s Day arrived and it was the same as any other year. But it took a different turn while I was waiting to buy puff-puff from Zizi. She makes the tastiest and most fluffy puff-puffs, as if they were marinated in honey and coated with caramel. So there I was in the queue when Chucks sneaked up behind me. I barely heard what he whispered into my ear, but I thought he said something about a surprise.

Chucks was a mulatto and girls in my class were always fawning over him, gushing about his curly hair, which was styled into a sporting Mohawk with a slight brown tint. Whenever he flashed his high-watt smile, I began to fantasise about his brown eyes while also speculating on the size of his dick. I thought about how exciting it would be to fuck him in a bathtub, but I didn’t think he shared my attraction to men.

Chucks’ gift wasn’t unique, a bar of chocolate, not exactly my favourite. But I was surprised by his affection towards me. I never imagined anyone would have found me attractive; despite all the pain I went through to trim down my flabby waistline and sagging arms, I still looked like an amoeba. However, here I was talking to the most dashing student in the junior secondary section (based on popular opinion). It felt like I had won a jackpot of one million Naira. He held my hand and gave it a little squeeze. My heart raced faster than ever, pumping hard against my chest. His hand was soft, reminding me of marshmallows. I was mesmerised. I watched words roll off his lips, his pink lips, as he talked about his love for football and his dream to play for Manchester United.

We exchanged phone numbers. Chucks’ phone was a Samsung Core, but I was too shy take out my phone, a Techno model held together with a sticky tape, so I scribbled his number on the glossy paper that had been wrapped around my puff-puff.

I never found out if Evans received a Valentine’s gift from anyone, but what I do know is that he had to watch the crush of his life take flight with another student, leaving him to pick up the pieces of his heart.

“The boy is not even tall,” Even lamented while we waited for our French teacher, Miss Bako. “He is just two inches taller than the minion characters, we watch on TV.”

“Maybe the boy’s father is rich because why would she push you aside and go for that dwarf who is so skinny he looks like he had been pulled through a keyhole?”

“Do you think that is why she tossed the gift I bought her, a very expensive perfume, under her desk and walked out on me? Later I saw her walking with the animated skeleton she chose over me and he had his hand around her waist.”

“Probably, but don’t let it dishearten you. She is just not into you.”

“Yes, perhaps you are right. Her taste in boys is a far cry from what I ever imagined.”

Miss Bako walked in fifteen minutes late, slightly earlier than usual. Miss Bako is always late for her class but she makes up for it by giving candy to everyone, especially students who answer her questions correctly. I found French really hard to understand, but with Miss Bako’s candy it had been smooth sailing with just some bumps here and there.

The lines of the integrated science textbook I was reading were slowly becoming blurry and the words were moving away from me. I was feeling drowsy and my eyelids were heavy and I could still taste the egusi soup and stockfish from the dinner I’d had. But I was startled out of my sedated state when my phone peeped. It was a WhatsApp message from Chucks, “Hey Ekene, whatsup?” “Hi Chucks, how are you doing?” I forgot about the test I had the next day as we chatted late into the night, with Chucks leading the conversation and telling me more about himself. He did not know who his father was, except that he was British and had been an expatriate in Nigeria. His father left the country when his mother told him that she was pregnant. His mother did not remarry, but he had different men posing as fathers to him.

“Why are you always spending longer times in the toilet these days?” Evans asked, with a quizzed look on his face when I took my mathematics set from him at the library.

“What do you mean by longer time?” “

I have been waiting here for the past fifteen minutes for you to just urinate.”

“Sorry, I wanted to urinate but then the urge to defecate just hooked me and I couldn’t resist it.”

Evans was right. Aside from the urge to defecate, I could not resist the nude pictures Chucks sent to me. I was always sneaking to the toilet with my phone. Although the stench of stale urine mixed with Izal could be nauseating, the toilets were the only safe zone where I could touch myself, slowly at first, and then vigorously until a muffled moan escaped from me.

At night whenever Chucks and I chatted, we sent each other nudes of ourselves. I went to bed with these images swimming in my head. My mother had also been complaining about how wet my mattress was these days, despite me trying to hide it by ironing the mattress before going to school. She probably thought I was bedwetting again.

I didn’t like libraries. The grave silence that permeated the air made me feel uneasy, but exams were fast approaching and I had to read. My father had promised to buy me the latest Play Station 4 game, if I had more As than Cs in my second-term results. I wanted to boast to my neighbours, Akin and Dayo, who refused to let me play with theirs because they said I would spoil it.

Chucks had offered to explain algebra and simultaneous equations to me in the library. I found these topics in mathematics quite challenging. Midway through the tutorial, he paused and placed his right hand under the table, on my thigh, and began to stroke. Not long afterwards, I felt wet.

“Do you know why I find you irresistible?” Chucks said, licking his lips.

“You remind me of one of my mother’s boyfriends, Walter. He was the one I liked the most. Bought me chocolate, gave me money, and usually poked me.”

“Poked you? I don’t understand,” I said, slightly confused.

“When my mother travelled, she often took me to his house. Walter said poking is a sign of manhood. He would ask me to take off my pants, then run some Vaseline in my butthole and

poke me with his dick.”

“Was it not painful?”

“Yes, it was at first. But after some time, it gets sweeter and you forget all about the pain,” Chucks replied, still stroking my thigh, his hand moving towards my genital area.

“Sadly my mother had a fight with him and they broke up, so he travelled out of the country. But he warned me not to tell anyone about the poking, ‘our little secret.’”

“Do you miss him?”

“Yes, I did. But not anymore since I met you.”

I blushed, unzipping my khaki shorts for him to stroke my dick. It was hard to stifle the moans as his fingers touched me. Then he asked, “What are you doing this weekend, I mean, Saturday?”

“Hmmm, nothing. I will just be at home probably playing video games or reading for the exams.”

“Why don’t you come to my house, so that I can explain these calculations better to you, and I have some nice video games we can play together?”

“Cool.”

I did not know when she drove in and turned the ignition off because his face was cupped in my hands as I softly kissed his pink lips; his lips were juicer than I imagined. I did not know when she opened the door, even as it creaked noisily on its rusty hinges, as my ears were copiously serenaded by the way his mouth vibrated as he moaned into mine. By then I was rock hard and I felt Chucks’ crotch bulging up steadily, chafing roughly against mine.

He rested my back against the black leather sofa, slowly licking and kissing my chest, down to my legs and inside my steamy hot thighs. My dick began to bounce up and down with signs of precum running down my piss slit. We switched positions and Chucks put his legs up on my shoulders, so I ran my tongue into the opening of his puckering butt, taking his hard balls one after the other into my mouth.

We were startled by the shattering sound of glass and I almost jumped out of my skin. Chucks and I were butt-naked waist down, with our dicks protruding like waving flags; Mrs Dike, Chucks’ mother, stood by the sofa staring at us as if she had seen ghosts. The broken pieces of the glass casserole dish were scattered all over the coffee-brown rug in the living room. I took my denim trousers and schoolbag, forgetting my green polka-dot boxers, and ran out of the house, heaving heavily and yet regretting not having climaxed.

Monday, I searched for Chucks in school but he was nowhere to be found. His classmates said he had not come to school. His phone had been switched off since Saturday and I was afraid to go anywhere near his house. Two weeks later, I overheard some girls in class saying he had travelled to London to complete his education. But he had never contacted me.

I always wondered if it’s just me or if everyone was only pretending to enjoy the vicar’s sermons. It was Palm Sunday, two months since Chucks disappeared, and the mood was sober. “Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand!” shouted the priest through the speakers. Despite the racket, two pews away from me were people snoring, their heads tilted at an angular position moving in rhythmic nods.

“Brethren, we have to be on our watch and pray harder because the days are evil!” He said the last word, “evil,” with so much grit – painting the picture of a horror flick with aliens taking over the planet earth.

“My brother and sisters, what is the world turning to? I read the newspaper yesterday and it was reported that the police arrested four men who were caught having sexual relations in a bar. . . . Can you imagine, homosexuality?!”

People who had been snoring jumped to their feet.

“All gays will go to hell!”

Everyone in the chapel was nodding in affirmation. Some people were praying in tongues, while others were waving their bibles in the air as if to bind and cast the demon of gayism.

Later, while I waited for my father in the car, a decades-old, greyish black Volvo that was in dire need of a replacement, my phone beeped. It was a WhatsApp message from Chucks. The first time I’d heard from him since he disappeared. I couldn’t reply; he went offline right away. The message began, “I love you,” but before I could read more, my father opened the door of the car and got in, followed by his friend, Papa Kelechi, who lives on the same street as us. I quietly slipped the phone into the back pocket of my trousers, message still unread.

When my father turned the ignition on, the car let out a cough, as if refusing to start. But my father just smiled; a little pressure on the accelerator and the engine roared to life, ready to hit the road.

When my father turned the ignition on, the car let out a cough, as if refusing to start. But my father just smiled; a little pressure on the accelerator, and the engine roared to life, ready to hit the road.

My father was fond of putting me through a Q&A after church, like what the title of the sermon was, which bible texts supported it, if I remembered the hymn the choir sang, and the first and last prayer points the pastor read out. But he was unusually quiet that day. I enjoyed the silence until Papa Kelechi cleared his throat. Whenever he cleared his throat, you knew he was about to ruffle some feathers. “I still find it hard to believe what the pastor talked about today.”

“Do you mean the gay cankerworm, which is silently eating away our moral fibre in broad daylight?” my father replied.

“Yes. Why would a man want to fuck another man? It is grossly disgusting.”

My ears perked up when I heard the word “fuck.” These men were hypocrites, telling younger people not to use vulgar words,

“Because anyone who does it will go to hell.” A small chuckle escaped my lips.

“What’s funny to you?” asked Papa Kelechi, facing me.

I pretended to be interested in a sports newspaper that was hanging out from the pouch behind the passenger’s seat, burning to read my message from Chucks.

When I finally got home I read the message over and over again. Does he still really love me? He apologised for not staying in touch. His mother, apparently, believed studying in Nigeria was influencing him negatively and led him to gay behaviour. He was presently going for counselling for what his mother hoped would exterminate any traces of gayism from him.

I couldn’t imagine the emotional turmoil of being subjected to a shrink who hoped to change him rather than help him accept himself. But my heart melted at the final lines of his text: “The thought of you sets my bosom on fire, the taste of your kiss, warm with soft wetness. I can’t wait to have you in my arms again.”

About the author

Torinmo Salau is a writer and her works have been published online and offline in literary publications and anthologies. She blogs at https://torinmo.wordpress. com/ and tweets at @torinmo_.